In anticipation of an “unprecedented legal challenge”, Rachel Reeves is spending hundreds of thousands on legal fees to defend her controversial VAT raid on private schools. The Mail has the story.
Parents opposed to the 20% education tax are crowdfunding to enable them to launch next month’s landmark case at the High Court, on behalf of their children who have Special Educational Needs (SEN).
A legal source described them as “fighting to avert really dire scenarios on behalf of many claimants who are very, very vulnerable”.
Meanwhile the Chancellor, who is the defendant, has employed four KCs – the most experienced and expensive barristers in the land – to lead the Government’s case.
Losing in court could force the Government to abandon the tax, which affects all 550,000 pupils in the independent sector. Around 100,000 of these have special educational needs.
Legal experts said “the serried rank of barristers” was a clear sign the Government saw the case as a direct threat to “a manifesto promise” and an “unprecedented challenge”. One said: “It is very, very rare that a flagship piece of legislation like this is challenged in the courts.” …
Parents bringing the April 1st judicial review say the tax breaches their children’s rights to have the education they need because it makes it unaffordable. …
News of the case comes as two more independent schools – Falcons School in Putney and Ursuline Prep in Ilford, told parents they are likely to close due to financial pressures.
A dozen school closures have been announced since VAT was imposed on fees in January.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: You can donate to the parents’ crowdfunder here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
By what right does this government see fit to waste thousands and thousands of taxpayer pounds on third party legal people? If those currently employed as ‘legal experts’ to defend this disgraceful so-called legislation are not up to the job then tuff. Furthermore, legal staff incapable of defending the government are not worthy of their wages and must be sacked.
My children are grown up and they did not go to private school, so I’m not personally affected but I can’t help feeling this is one of those policies that are purely motivated by leftist class envy.
The money this will bring in is probably negligible.
Thus it is the result of the sort of resentment-fueled hate that would rather make everyone dirt poor than accept that some people are richer.
The reality is that this legislation will cost taxpayers millions. State schools are not capable of handling the special needs children currently taken care of via the private sector so the net effect is costs transferred and doubled at least.
Class envy is the least of it.
But then if putting VAT on private education is going to cost the government more money than the amount it brings in, what reason could there be other than class envy?
This has little to do with class and more to do with destroying Britain and Britishness. Everything this government does is intended to destroy this country and not just physically but the very soul of Britain.
Churches and the C of E – for crying out loud they’re now praying to feckin allah inside them.
Our industries – coal, motor / engineering all but wiped out such that the indigenous skills will be lost forever.
Education and British history? It’s gone. Children are told what to think and not how. History? Only that we ran slaves not freed them. Empire was wicked and so on. I could go on.
Everything being pushed by Kneel and co is intended to wipe every last vestige of Britishness from the collective mind. Everything.
Class envy is an incidental plus as far as our treasonous government is concerned. We haven’t even got close to the depths of destruction.
Exactly – they don’t LIKE private education, OR the people that use those establishments, is the fact of the matter
It’s not just class envy, I think – this is the first step in the abolition of private schools motivated by the madleft’s wish to micro-manage society, and bring everything under their loathsome, palsied control. Also, they believe that the state owns our children, and that therefore parents have no right to determine the education of children.
Yes, this makes sense.
Indeed when I was born at the height of the communism (in Eastern Europe) it was normal practice to take away newborn babies from their mothers as soon as they were born (of course they pretended it was for all “noble” medical reasons) and thus psychologically prevent the baby from bonding with their mothers. In the hard Stalinist regime it was openly stated that the child belonged to the state, not the parents.
Likewise parents were put under pressure to send their kids to state-run nurseries so that they could relieve the “correct” upbringing. This was, by the way, also achieved by forcing women to work (sounds familiar?).
If our theory is correct, then sooner or later they will ban home schooling.
The extreme left (that is, those to the left of the Conservatives) must be furious they did not think of this ruse years ago as a means of crushing the private education sector.
I am not sure if they want to turn one third of the sector into a service for wealthy foreigners with the other two extinct. Of course wealthier Brits whether tax resident or not can send their darlings to Switzerland, NZ or the USA.
i suggest all IK private schools move overseas (not in the EU of course) where costs will be much lower. Likely even NZ or RSA would work well as cost savings would easily cover the r flights. Sod the CO2.
…would make Saturday sports an interesting logistical challenge…
That is exactly right, it is an act of pure spite which will cost more than it raises and upset hundreds of thousands of families ‘ lives, it will destroy yet another warp of England’s remaining social and cultural fabric.
It is a move which even the left wing governments of yore chose not to do because the economic arguments simply make no sense.
Only these utter marxists have gone ahead with it, because they hate England and it’s quirky amazing people.
Some of it is definitely class envy, but the majority of opposition to private education is displayed by upper class types who benefited hugely themselves from a private education. Even more insidious really – ‘I don’t want you to have what gave me such a good start in life’. Also, once this particular golden goose has been killed, where does the next income stream come from??
They have justified it to themselves as the believe that either the schools are rich enough to absorb the cost or the parents are in the same way that they are convinced that family farmers are all billionaires with plenty of spare cash.
Knowing the way legal costs escalate, “hundreds of thousands” will run into millions of public money to defend the indefensible.
Good to see the Chancellor up before the Beak, but stand by for a fellow traveller to let her off.
Unprecedented challenge to a manifesto promise? Whut? You mean like Gina Miller’s challenge to Brexit? As unprecedented as that?
It may be a threat to the manifesto promise but it’s a reflection of the lack of competence of this government.
You mean spending hundreds of thousands of other people’s money